Alasdair Donaldson will face a disciplinary hearing at UK Athletics next week after being photographed leaving a “nightclub of questionable orientation” when working at the Youth Olympics in Singapore. The media had been blocked from reporting the story until now after the Scot took out a super injunction towards the end of last week. However in an extraordinary incident late last night, the Newham and Essex Beagle showed pals pictures from inside the “questionable” club on his iPhone. Speaking from the High Court this lunchtime Mr Justice Fair agreed that by doing this, Donaldson had “wilfully contributed” to the story being made public and thus declared the injunction void. We can now reveal that the top endurance coach spent “at least thirty minutes” in the club and consumed “at least one” beverage that may or may not have been alcoholic. The hot spot has since been shut down after a raid by Malaysian police.
It is certainly a headache that UKA can do without, having been forced to deny that the sport had a drink problem earlier in the month when Michael Rimmer was seen intoxicated after the London Grand Prix. Added to this, the Governing Body are investigating claims that a group of Loughborough based stars have “been going on a rampage” in the Leicestershire town. A spokesman for the local police said that they were “watching the situation closely” but denied that Michael Bingham and Martyn Rooney had had to be forcibly removed from a night club over the weekend. A UKA source said that the organisation took the claims against Donaldson “very seriously” but would wait to hear his side of the story before making judgement. “Obviously it’s very worrying,” said the Athletics House insider, “the real shame is that Alasdair didn’t realise that someone of his profile was likely to attract media attention.”
Our source also said that he “did not know” whether Donaldson would still appear on The One Show this evening. The BBC were scheduled to be doing a full feature on the coach in recognition of his “outstanding contribution” to athletics. Just last week a Beeb insider told the Echo that they were planning on running a “complete history” of Donaldson “starting from when he was in school”. The senior executive also revealed that it had taken “many hours” to complete filming. In the wake of today’s stories it seems very unlikely that such a segment can still go ahead, with one member of the production team stating that airing may now be put back several weeks or scrapped altogether.